One of the most significant commercial pressures industrial design consultancies face in the UK is losing work to publicly funded organisations offering heavily subsidised design and product development services.
Since the DBA took over the interests of the British Industrial Design Association (BIDA) in October 2024, we have been working directly with our members to understand how this problem is manifested locally, the impact it is having on their practices, and how we might collaborate with government to create a fairer and more effective system of design-led business support for the future.
Catapults and Research and Technology Organisations were initially set up to help innovators from universities and private sector SMEs to navigate the pipeline from the first stage of frontier research and invention, through commercialisation and early-stage business development to adoption and diffusion. But Catapults and RTOs have grown to a point where their offer is duplicating existing services that are delivered commercially, at the expense of industrial design consultancies.
Duplicating this already available market offer at a much higher cost (albeit billed to the taxpayer) and often to an inferior standard, the individual or SME consumer has no other choice than to work with them. Why? Because in the past, SMEs which did not have the budget for product development were able to draw on EU funding or SMART awards to enable them to work with industrial design consultancies. This funding has gone and left the Catapults and RTOs to dominate the space with no choice of provider for the SME.
The consequence is direct and measurable.
Industrial design consultancies are losing work, not because they cannot compete on quality or expertise, but because they cannot compete with organisations which are having their costs met from public funds.
The DBA is actively lobbying to help develop models that deliver real innovation support for businesses whilst creating the conditions for a sustainable commercial design sector to thrive alongside it. The DBA and its activities are funded directly by its members. Please become a member and support this and other important work we need to do on behalf of our vibrant industry.
Industrial design consultancies are the development layer of R&D, effectively the ‘D’ that turns the ‘R’ into economic output. They help to take outputs from research and translate them into manufacturable, market-ready products through user research, concept development, prototyping, engineering for manufacture, regulatory compliance and route-to-market support. They are the mechanism for translating innovation into commercial and investable activity across business.
We are not seeking to protect them from competition, we are lobbying for a model that delivers real innovation support for businesses whilst creating the conditions for a sustainable commercial design sector to thrive alongside it. Displacing industrial design consultancies does not strengthen the innovation ecosystem; it hollows out one of its most critical components.
The Design Business Association (DBA) is the trade association for the design industry. We represent a vibrant community of design agencies and in-house design teams.
The DBA is uniquely placed to provide a powerful, united industry voice to champion the strategic and economic value of design to business and government. Join us, add your voice to our membership and proactively shape your own business’ and the industry’s future.